- Number
- 12259542
- Published
- 2025-03-25
- Filed
- 2023-01-27
- Assignee
- DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
- Inventors
- Smithwick; Quinn Y.
- CPC
- A41D1/00; A41G7/00; A63J7/005; G02B13/0095; G02B23/08; G02B23/14; G02B27/0172
- Verdict
- High Hardware
- Source
- Google Patents · FreePatentsOnline
The keeper's note
Optical viewfinder hardware for costume/animatronic character heads (Smithwick).
Abstract
A head for a walk-around costume is provided that is adapted for enhanced visibility. The costume head includes an outer shell defining an interior space for receiving a head of a human performer. The outer shell includes an aperture allowing incoming light from an exterior space to enter the interior space, and an eye location for the human performer is spaced apart from the aperture when the head is received in the interior space. To provide an enlarged field of view, the costume head includes an optical viewfinder assembly disposed within the interior space of the outer shell between the aperture and the eye location. The optical viewfinder assembly is adapted for receiving the incoming light and transmitting the incoming light to the eye location to move a viewpoint of the human performer to the aperture to provide a larger field of view of the exterior space.
Background
BACKGROUND 1. Field of the Description (1) The present description relates, in general, to walk-around costumes used in entertainment settings such as theme and amusement parks, at sporting events, and so on. More particularly, the description relates to an optical viewfinder system or assembly for use in the head of a walk-around costume to enhance the view of the surrounding environment or space to a human (“actor” or “performer”) wearing the walk-around costume. 2. Relevant Background (2) Theme and amusement parks and other entertainment venues such as sports stadiums often entertain visitors by providing characters from movies and other media, fanciful animals and other creatures, and team mascots. These characters are provided by human actors or performers wearing full body or walk-around costumes that often include a head such that the performer's head is enclosed within the costume. Costumed characters in the physical real world need to be the appropriate height and proportions relative to their animated or movie counterparts in their story world. (3) Visibility for the human performer wearing the costume, e.g., a large head over their own head, is an ongoing challenge to successfully presenting characters through the use of walk around costumes. In many cases, the physical costume's eyes are not conveniently located at the same height or spacing as a human performer's eyes. This makes it difficult for costumed performers to see out of the costumes, which leads to prob
Claims
1. A costume head, comprising: an outer shell defining an interior space configured to receive a head of a human performer, wherein the outer shell includes an aperture allowing incoming light from an exterior space outside the outer shell to enter the interior space, wherein the incoming light forms an image of at least a portion of the exterior space, and an eye location for the human performer is spaced apart from the aperture when the head is received in the interior space; and a non-electronic optical viewfinder assembly comprising a collimating lens disposed adjacent to the eye location, wherein the image is transmitted a vertical distance and a depth distance from the aperture to the eye location. ||
7. A costume head, comprising: an outer shell with an interior space configured to receive a head of a human performer so as to position an eye of the human performer at an eye location, wherein the outer shell includes an aperture defining a path for incoming light between the interior space and an exterior space outside the outer shell, wherein the incoming light forms an image of at least a portion of the exterior space, and the eye location for the human performer is spaced apart both a horizontal distance and a vertical distance from the aperture when the head is received in the interior space; and an optical viewfinder assembly comprising a collimating lens disposed adjacent to the eye location, wherein the image is transmitted the vertical distance and the horizontal distance to the eye location, without interruption. ||
12. A costume head, comprising: a shell with an interior space configured to receive a head of a performer, wherein the shell includes a view portal defining a path for incoming light from an exterior space into the interior space; and a non-electronic optical viewfinder comprising a collimating lens and disposed within the interior space of the shell, the non-electronic optical viewfinder configured to receive the incoming light and to direct the incoming light to an eye location of the performer, via the collimating lens disposed adjacent to the eye location, when the head of the performer is positioned in the interior space, wherein the incoming light is optically transformed to provide a viewpoint to the eye, and wherein the eye location is offset both a vertical distance and a horizontal distance from an outlet of the view portal into the interior space. ||
20. A wearable character head comprising: an outer shell defining an interior space configured to receive a human head therein, the outer shell defining a view aperture configured to receive light from an exterior of the outer shell into the interior space; and an optical viewfinder assembly configured to receive the light from the view aperture, the optical viewfinder assembly comprising: an objective lens positioned in the interior space proximate adjacent the view aperture and configured to output an image based on the light, a field lens spaced apart from the objective lens and configured to flip the image outputted by the objective lens, and a collimating lens disposed adjacent to an eye location of the human head received in the outer shell, wherein the optical viewfinder assembly is configured to transmit the image, without interruption, a vertical dimension and a depth dimension to the eye location within the interior space, wherein the eye location is different from the view aperture.